The Savage Brawl [Round 5: Battletopia]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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As Zeke and "Quoun" approached the main power room, it became clear that the area was well-guarded. There were at least a dozen well-armed Ska'van soldiers patrolling the halls nearby. They had ducked just outside of the area and were discussing plans - or rather, Konka was considering plans and Zeke wasn't interested in hearing them.

"I oughta just blast 'em," Zeke grumbled.
"Given that they created your weapon, they may have protection from it," Konka Rar said. "And even if it works, you run the risk of alerting them to our presence, and possibly sealing off access to the core."
"Yeah, well, you got a better plan? Nah, I ain't even gonna ask, it's probably some kinda trick. You may be able to fool Jack, but you ain't gonna fool me."

Zeke stood up and rushed forward, firing his laser the whole time.
"EAT LASER, YA GODDAMNED ALIENS!" he shouted. Before long, they were returning fire, but Zeke had already run back to the safety of the hall.
"I got three of 'em!" he said, grinning widely. "I just gotta keep this up and we'll have 'em all gone before you know it." He fired another blast around the corner quickly before running off.

Were Rar capable of sighing, he would have. Instead, he was forced to retreat with the farmer, firing lasers at his pursuers whenever he had the opportunity.

***

The communications room was well-guarded, but that was of little consequence when six out of eight guards suddenly side with the intruder and promptly execute the other two for disobeying their mother.
One of Ajota's new children used his ID card to disable the ship's entire network, while another activated a holo-map in the corner of the room.
Ajota walked over to the map and looked over it.
this ship is unsuitable Ajota thought to her family. we must leave this planet in a ship more worthy of the greatest family in the universe.
She paused for a moment, lost in thought.
we will have to build our own ship, my children
She held her forelimb to the holo-map.
but it will need a power source
She left, and a number of her children followed obediently. No doubt the power core would be even better guarded than the communications room, but that merely meant the Soulmother's family would grow larger.

***

Sub-Vice Lieutenant Rus'th was nervous.
Specifically, he was nervous that the chain of command had gotten all the way down to him. Every other officer had either died or fled the ship, and none of the security teams were responding to his calls.
Worst of all, there were no more emergency transport pods.
He was actually relieved when the two humans and a dog charged into the bridge; at least they weren't something terrifying, like a cow.

"Hands where I can see 'em!" Jack shouted.
Rus'th complied wordlessly.
"Where are the rest of your men?" the sergeant asked.
"Idon'tknowI'velostcontactwitheveryonepleasedon'ts hootmeIjustwanttogetoutofhere" Rus'th babbled.
"Does he need a translator-thingy?" Daisy asked.
"Nojustpleasedon'tshootme"
"Nah, he's just scared outta his wits," Jack said calmly. "Take that blaster out of his pocket, Daisy. And don't you try anythin' funny when she does!"
Rus'th just stood very still as Daisy removed his only weapon. He didn't think there was anything he could find funny under these circumstances.

As Daisy stepped away and trained her weapon on the prisoner, Jack's attention was drawn to the viewscreen and the battle going on outside. It seemed the alien ships were fighting - and losing to - another army made out of... food?
"What the hell's going on out there?" he asked, turning to Sub-Vice Lieutenant Rus'th.
"Idon'tknowwe'reunderattack..."
"Can you please slow down?" Daisy asked, exasperated. Rus'th took a deep breath.
"We're under attack by those meat-ships. I haven't got any idea who's commanding them. All my superiors are missing, communications aren't working, ohgodohgodI'mgoingtodieaugh"
And then he fainted.
"Better grab him, Daisy," Jack said. "I don't know who these food guys are, but I doubt they're any friendlier than these aliens. And I'm not gonna let either of 'em smash up this town."
He sat down in the control chair.
"I'm gonna get this thing moving and take out that big burger. Looks to me like that's their command center. And then we grab Zeke and Quoun and get out of here."
"I like the part where we get out of here. But weren't those two going to take out the ship's power? That's probably not going to help us get closer."
Jack cursed, too quietly for a lady to hear.
"And that guy said communications are down. Guess you'd better give them a warning."
"What about you, Jack?"
Jack put on his most patriotic face.
"I have to make sure this ship stays on course for as long as I can."
"But you could die!"
"Daisy, from the day I put on this uniform, I knew that one day I might have to give my life for my country." He smiled slightly. "But don't worry too much; I'm not gonna let today be that day if I can help it. Just get yourselves to safety, I'll take care of myself."
Daisy nodded, a hint of tears in her eyes, and ran off. Jack set the ship moving forward, and pressed every button he could find that looked like it might control a weapon.

***

Gormand was worried. The alien mothership was charging right through his forces, and headed straight for the burgerbase. He didn't think he could move the vessel fast enough to get out of the way, and even if he could, the mothership was firing every weapon in its arsenal. It was time for a strategic withdrawal; perhaps he could find another base. Or at least some way of killing Ekelhaft. He gave the burger some basic defense commands just in case, and then left his seat.

As he scurried out of the control room, he found a badly broken coffee mug slowly hopping towards him. Its handle had been broken, and there were two fist-sized holes in its front.
"Ugh," Jimmy grumbled. "Running low on coffee. Not feeling too great. You can fix me, right?"

Gormand groaned.
"I'm afraid I don't have time," he said, pushing Jimmy aside with a pair of noodles. "On the bright side, though, I'm sure you'll be able to get an excellent story about the collision between the alien mothership and this schoolhouse."
And Gormand slipped away from the motherburger, not even glancing back.

If the meatball had been able to spare the time to think, he might have considered three facts.

The first was that, strictly speaking, his command center was operable by anyone else made of food, provided they had the intelligence to issue actual commands.
The second was that the motherburger was currently sloped so that the command center was downhill from here.
The third was that there was a coffee shop that Gormand had overlooked in his food-hoarding spree.

***

Albert Smith's body was distinct enough from Ziirphael's last host that Hoss was unable to make the connection. All he saw was an undead abomination.
Likewise, Hoss' new form was unrecognizable to Ziirphael. All he saw was another worthless, insignificant human.
And then they both saw Ekelhaft crawling towards them. It had taken the ill-advised choice of going straight through a spatial distortion; this made its movements across the crater much slower than they would be normally, until finally it slowed so much that it might as well have stopped.
Both Ziirphael and Hoss had the same immediate thought: Ekelhaft was vulnerable. If they could just find a suitable weapon to strike it with before it escaped or the anomaly dissipated, they could destroy the blob for good.
However, they were not so united on their follow-up thoughts; Ziir's main concern was ensuring the human was not an unnecessary distraction, and Hoss' was ensuring that the zombie didn't kill him before he could finish Ekelhaft.

Hoss' memories were a fraction of what they had once been, but they did contain critical information on zombies; first, that zombies were generally slow and lumbering, and second, that the best way to deal with them was firing a shotgun at their head. Magic was an option, but his last experiment had convinced him that it was one to be avoided for the moment; surely he could find weaponry nearby if he simply ran fast enough.

And so he fled to the nearest building, which just happened to be a coffee shop.

***

Zeke had no idea where he was running, and frankly, Konka was hardly concerned with the farmer at this point. His primary concern was acquiring the power core.
It then occurred to him that Zeke's clumsy efforts had drawn a number of the guards away from their posts. Perhaps he could work with this.
Zeke turned back and fired another shot, and Konka fired off one of his own shortly after. As they ran down the next hallway, Konka decided it would be more effective if he sold his temporary ally on the plan - there simply wasn't time to kill him, ensure he was dead, and reanimate his corpse, after all. Besides, live humans tended to run faster.
"I believe I may be able to disable the power core, if you can keep these guards occupied."
"No way!" Zeke snapped. "I ain't lettin' you out of my sight!"
Konka almost wished he could sigh.
"Well, if you would prefer, I could divert their attention while you disable the uranonitrodimite power core."
Zeke paused.
"How do I do that?" he asked.
Konka didn't need to get further with his nonsensical explanation than "disencalibrate the thermodynamoid octoprocessor" before Zeke sighed and gave in.
"All right, fine! You do it if you understand the damn thing so well! But if you try anythin' funny, I'm warnin' you..."
"Your assistance is greatly appreciated, Ezekiel Jones. If all goes well and I am able to return to my homeworld, I will tell my people of you."
Despite his wariness, Zeke felt flattered.
"Well, uh... that's mighty kind of you Quoun, but, uh..." He paused. "Look, just get that urnodiniter or whatever already!"
Konka Rar left, making an exaggerated gesture as he did.
"May the Great Knargalath watch over you, Ezekiel Jones."
"Yeah, yeah, you too," Zeke grumbled, before running down another hallway.

***

Jack was puzzled. The strange army had, at first, tried to slow down his advance towards the burgership... but then, suddenly, they'd broken off and changed direction, and the burger seemed to be following them, although slowly.
Was it not their main base after all? Why wouldn't they prioritize fending off an attack if it was?
Jack didn't like it. But on the other hand, they'd stopped firing entirely. And he wasn't the type to keep shooting when the enemy had stopped first.
He stopped his charge and decided to simply follow the strange armada, at least for now. If he was going out in a blaze of glory today, it could wait another half-hour or so.

***

Ajota did not smile as the guards allowed her past. But she would have if she were capable of it.
As she entered the ship's power station, she very politely asked a technician to open up the energy chamber and retrieve the core for her.
He was only too happy to oblige. After all, she was the Soulmother, and he had to please her.

***

At first, Ziirphael considered simply letting the human run; after all, his primary concern was dealing with Ekelhaft.
On the other hand, there was the matter of the explosion which had drawn him here in the first place, and of course the strange aftereffects it was having on the madgod now trapped in the zone it was in. What had caused it?
Whatever it was, two things were clear. First, that it had the potential to destroy Ekelhaft; and second, that the strange human was the only potential witness he knew of.
Ziir ran towards the coffee shop. It seemed that a quick interrogation was in order.

***

Daisy sighed as she crawled out of the access tunnel, and pulled Rover out after her. Why couldn't things ever be simple?
Then she saw a farmer running straight towards her, looking over his shoulder.
"Zeke!" Daisy shouted as he drew nearer. "What are you doing? Where's Quoun?"
"He went ahead to discombobulate the whatever-thingy," Zeke said. "I'm keepin' the guards busy while he does that."
"But Jack's got control of the ship! And there's some other aliens out there he needs to fight! If he powers this thing down, we'll be sunk!"
"Dammit!" Zeke grumbled, firing down the hallway again. "Guess we gotta find him." He paused.
"...you, uh, wouldn't happen to remember where he said the power doohicky was, do you?"
Daisy sighed. She tucked a note into Rover's collar, then climbed back into the tunnel.
"Rover, find Quoun. You should have his scent, right?"
Rover barked, and ran off.
"Come on, Zeke!" Daisy said, climbing further in. "We'll be safer back in the command center. I know the way there."
Zeke fired two shots down the hall, and then followed her in.

***

Gormand was slightly worried about the fact that his final orders to his forces weren't being carried out, but this concern was greatly reduced by the fact that the alien mothership wasn't attacking either. He briefly considered retaking control, but that seemed pointless; he'd already taken down most of the alien fleet, and their remaining craft seemed in disarray. Besides, the original plan had been to use their technology against Ekelhaft; perhaps he could still do so. They would either be more open to negotiation, or easier to overpower.

Gormand hopped on a milkshake as it rocketed past and assumed manual control of it, flying for the largest and least-damaged alien ship he could see. Negotations first, perhaps claiming to be a mere envoy as opposed to the commander of his forces; then if that failed, he could resort to force.

Meanwhile, on the Shrik'aan, Commander Las'healt was irritated. The mothership's communications grid had just gone down, and the Shrik'aan's technicians expected another ten to thirty minutes before their own ship's communication system was properly linked to the rest of the fleet. In the meantime, the remaining men under his command seemed confused, unable to process either what their probably-doomed flagship was doing or why, exactly, their enemies had suddenly withdrawn despite holding the advantage.

Granted, Las'healt had no explanation either, but he was in command, dammit, and they needed to respect that, rather than running around like Thularian Groanfowls with their heads cut off. He was fairly sure this was the time for an inspiring speech, but with comms down, he couldn't even do that. And the engineers, in their brilliance, had to shut down the Shrik'aan's internal comms to set up the new system, so he couldn't even call everyone on his own ship together.

And where the hell was the radar operator? If this whole mess was just a diversion for a surprise attack, they'd be vulnerable now. But no one was at the radar, and not one officer he could find had the proper training to use it.

He slightly regretted choosing the Shrik'aan as the new base of operations; granted, it was the most undamaged ship, but it was also the largest aside from the mothership itself. Which made it a noticeable target. Perhaps in all this mess, he could take a transport shuttle and quietly commander one of the smaller fighters, and then nobody would notice if he left the battlefield entirely...

That seemed reasonable. More reasonable than staying here waiting for things to get worse. He told the Shrik'aan's captain to assume command of the ship while he searched for the radar operator, and slipped away to the hangar. He selected the most durable and fastest shuttlecraft, and opened the bay doors as he prepared to take off.

Unfortunately, he had also provided Gormand with an opportunity to enter the Shrik'aan, and his shuttle was now on a collision course with a milkshake. Instinctively, he ejected out.

He had just enough time to recall the safety lecture about not ejecting inside a ship before he learned firsthand that his body was nowhere near as durable as either the seat he was in or the ceiling he was headed towards.

Gormand, for his part, was better prepared by virtue of the fact that he was on the outside of his vehicle; he simply hopped off, and had just enough time to watch the ensuing explosion cover the hangar with milkshake residue.

***

The power chamber finally opened, exposing the core. Ajota gazed on it with delight.
it is beautiful she thought to the technician. i am so proud of you, my child
She held the core in her forelimbs and removed it from the power chamber.
now we must leave this ship
find more children to bring with us
and build our grand vessel for our journey home
it will be glorious
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by violent sounds outside the room.

Konka Rar had initially been surprised by the sheer number of guards around the power core, but a closer inspection with his cybernetic eye revealed the even more surprising fact that most of them were actually humans. Or at least, most of the ones that weren't cows.
More importantly, only a small portion of the masses gathered around the central reactor were actually armed. As such, it was unlikely that his preparations would be interrupted from this distance.
A small whirlwind surrounded him, then it picked up speed and began moving forward. With intense concentration, Konka Rar guided it towards the central power room, ignoring everyone in his path.
He halted the spell once he reached the reactor itself; there was no need to risk damage to the power core, after all, and he knew so little about it.
And then he saw the crowd inside, gathered around an ant woman. She was holding a glowing sphere; a glance at the empty round recess in the nearby machinery suggested it was the power core he was after.
Why she had it was irrelevant to him; she was merely another obstacle in his way. He raised his cybernetic arm to fire...
"MONSTER! YOU HAVE HARMED SOULMOTHER AJOTA'S CHILDREN!"
The voice surprised Rar, and distracted him long enough for a Ska'van guard to grab his arm and direct his laser through the ceiling. The lich recovered quickly, however, and knocked the alien away with a well-placed staff strike.
He turned back to the ant creature, only to see an angry human standing in front of her.
"Your crimes against the Soulmother and her family are unforgiveable," said the human. "Surrender now, and Soulmother Ajota will grant you the small mercy of a quick death. It is far more than a murderer such as you deserves."
Rar rushed forward and grabbed him by the throat with his cybernetic arm.
"Konka Rar surrenders to no one, fool. I neither know nor care who this 'Soulmother Ajota' of yours is. I have simply come for the power core."
He flung the human aside and took another few steps forward, advancing on the ant.
"And if your 'Soulmother' hands it over quietly, then there need not be any more blood shed here today."
The gathered crowd of humans, Ska'vans, assorted other aliens, and cows drew closer, the swifter among them rushing to Ajota's defense as she scurried to safety.
yes my children, protect me
this monster has cruelly slaughtered your brothers and sisters
and he shows not the slightest hint of remorse
he will pay with his life
Konka Rar was unconcerned.
"So you oppose me, then. An unwise decision."
A dark aura surrounded the lich's staff as he spoke.
"Perhaps if you're fortunate, you'll have an entire minute to regret that choice."

***

Sergeant Jack Nelson was mildly surprised by the laser beam that fired up through the floor and struck Sub-Vice Lieutenant Rus'th in his primary heart. He would have been more surprised if it weren't for what he was seeing on the ship's viewscreen at that very moment.
The enemy forces had stopped around a small, unassuming coffee shop, and the airborne units were landing.
Jack couldn't help but wonder - had these aliens brought an entire military unit to Earth just for a cup of coffee?
And then he saw them lift the entire shop out of the ground, and fly back towards the motherburger.
"Wonder if I'm drunk," Jack muttered to himself.

Gormand was less unsettled by the sight, and not just because those were technically his forces. Frankly, he reasoned that it wasn't his concern now. The captain of the Shrik'aan had been skeptical of his talk about a powerful enemy that threatened them both, but strangling him to death with a noodle had been enough to gain the rest of the crew's cooperation. That was fortunate; Gormand hadn't been looking forward to operating an entire warship by himself.
It was also fortunate that the Ska'vans had a wide variety of detection systems. They might not have had an Insane Avatar Of Entropy scan setting per se, but running an Entropic Anomaly scan and an Antimagic Singularity scan simultaneously amounted to about the same thing.
It was an odd coincidence that Gormand's armada had been in the area, but he also regarded it as irrelevant.
"Sir! The creature appears to be trapped in a spatiotemporal distortion," said the First Officer, who had been the Second Officer about three minutes ago. "I don't think it can move right now, but on the other hand, our weapons will be affected by the same field. They probably won't strike until the field collapses."
"Can you collapse the field?" Gormand asked.
"Um... I don't really know much about spatiotemporal distortions, sir."
Gormand's one eye narrowed.
"Then find me someone who does."
A nervous voice spoke up.
"Um, I think if we generate a protonic reversal field, that might do the trick? But it'll take a few minutes."
Gormand rubbed two noodly appendages together eagerly.
"Get on it. And fire on that distortion. I want that blob destroyed, or at least close to it, the instant that's possible."
"Sir, um, if we do that our weaponry might trigger a protonic distortion field failure, which could potentially lead to an accelerating disentropic cascade..."
"Will that destroy the blob?"
"Well, yes..."
"Works for me. Do it."
The technician sighed.
"Yes, sir. Preparing weaponry."
Missiles, lasers, and bomb-drones were all unleashed on Ekelhaft, and froze in place as they entered the distortion. Gormand was pleased; soon, that accursed blob would be no more. All he needed was the protonic reversal whatever to go off.
Then the ship shook violently.
"What was that?" Gormand shouted.
"We're under attack, sir!" the First Officer shouted. He pressed a button. "Displaying attacker on main viewscreen."
The image of Ekelhaft bombarded with a ridiculous array of weaponry suddenly shifted to a view of a very large ship, familiar to everyone on board.
"It's the mothership!" the First Officer screamed. "Have they gone rogue? Who's even in charge over there now?"
"Urgh. Well, shoot them down, then!"
"Sir, if we do that, I'll have to delay deploying the proton reversal field..."
"Urgh. Why does everything around here have to be so complicated?" Gormand grumbled. "Just do whatever you have to do so we don't blow up before that blob does!"
Suddenly, the viewscreen went dark, and the ship shook again.
"We're surrounded!" shouted the Third Officer (who was slightly bitter about not technically being promoted yet but had decided it was better to keep his mouth shut). "Unidentified forces appear to be, um, dragging the Shrik'aan along with them?"
"Probably mine," Gormand sighed. "So, do you guys happen to like coffee?"

Jack didn't have any idea what was going on, and that worried him. First the other alien ship had fired at an empty patch of ground that already had an enormous crater on it, and despite that, there hadn't been an explosion. And then the food-aliens had flown right past it with their new trophy, and were now dragging both ship and shop towards the burger-base.
A warning light told him the ship was low on power. Quoun and Zeke must have taken out the reactor before Daisy could warn them; but it seemed there were still reserves.
And then he saw the ships fly into the burger, and it started growing bigger. Jack looked at the rapidly-draining power, and the caffeine-enhanced monstrosity before him, and made his decision.
The ship charged forward at full speed.

Back when the Ska'van mothership had been decided, her engineers decided it would be most efficient to fuel the intertial dampeners in the power chamber directly from the power core. If the ship needed to run on reserves, they reasoned, there would be no need to attend to the power station, so why waste valuable energy on safety features in there?
The ultimate result of this decision was that Ajota and her children were flung around the room, just as Konka Rar completed his spell.
"ERADICATION!" he shouted.
Waves of darkness flew out from his staff and struck the scattered children of Ajota, killing many outright. It also had the convenient side effect of holding the staff airborne for the spell's duration; by clinging to his weapon, Rar was able to hold his ground, and spotted Ajota.
He carefully prepared a quick levitation spell to avoid an unpleasant fall, and floated towards the ant-woman. The power core would be his.
"Arf! Arf!"
Just as rar neared his prone target, Rover ran into the room, and excitedly grabbed the lich's leg. Rather than floating gracefully towards the Soulmother, Konka Rar was instead sent flying into her.
He was shaken for a moment, and still had the irritating dog biting his leg, but he soon regained his senses and grabbed the power core. He could feel the magic within it, and he began channeling its power into his own body.
But unfortunately, Ajota recovered from the collision a moment after he did. She started pulling on the core, disrupting Rar's concentration.
He tried to right himself. The dog was primarily a diversion; it was unlikely to actually dislodge his leg. The power core was more important. He needed it.
He struck Ajote with his staff as his cybernetic arm held firmly onto the core. She responded by grabbing at his bone arm with her mandibles.
And then the crash came.

Hoss had not entirely gathered his wits yet. All he knew was that a zombie was chasing him, he had no conventional weapons, and the coffee shop had been lifted into the air with both of them in it.
Then the crash came, and he noticed the meaty texture of the burger outside the front door.
He wasn't entirely certain why, but it was clear that Gormand had come to his aid, although most likely unintentionally. Deciding that the meatball would, at the very least, be interested in news of Ekelhaft's vulnerability, he dashed for the door and into the burgership.
Ziir, meanwhile, ran through a hole in the wall that a saltshaker had created near the coffee machines. He was similarly eager to inform Gormand of the opportunity to strike their greatest foe - even if the death god now had other plans after the creature's destruction. The human was insignificant now.
Both of them were surprised when they reached the cockpit, only to find a coffee cup in the pilot's seat instead of a meatball.
"Hey... guys..." Jimmy said with a weak laugh. "Gimme... a sec... need... coffee..."
Ziir sighed. Wonderful, either Gormand had developed a severe coffee addiction, or he had lost control of his army. In either case, it seemed he was out of options, and he advanced towards the human.
Hoss found himself desperate. He still didn't have a weapon, his magic was still unpredictable, and the zombie was almost upon him.
He either needed to take his chances with a spell, or pray for a miracle.
Said miracle came in the form of a gun turret popping out of the meat beneath Ziirphael's feet and knocking him to the ground.

"Preparations ready! Proton reversal field primed, and target locked on!" the technician shouted. "There's a lot of meat in the way, but, uh, we've got the turret outside. We'll have it activated on your command."
"Make it so," Gormand replied. He was getting bored with this.

The Shrik'aan's turret was glowing oddly, but Hoss didn't particularly care. All he knew was that there was a zombie he needed to get rid of, and a large cup of coffee that he thought he had killed.
With a sudden burst of adrenaline, he lifted the confused Ziirphael and flung him into Jimmy Chase, just moments before the fry-drones activated every coffee machine in the shop and poured it into their weakened commander.

The proton reversal field struck the dimensional anomaly. Ekelhaft had only a moment to process the weapons headed its way. It couldn't possibly react in time.
But during that very instant, it was teleported away as Albert Smith's body was disintegrated by gallons of scalding hot coffee, taking Ziirphael with it.
At the same time, Gormand vanished from the bridge of the Shrik'aan, Hoss vanished from the cockpit of the motherburger without realizing what he had just done, and Konka Rar vanished from the power room on the Ska'van mothership.
As did Ajota the Soulmother, locked in combat with him over the power core, and Rover, still clinging eagerly to the lich's bony leg.